"I've been up here all night thinking about this. Thinking about my destiny."

NOTE: This piece is crack. Pure, unmitigated crack because Peter, in his infinite wisdom, decided somewhere that he wanted to join the circus. Set in early S2, goes AU when Peter isn't found by Irish mobsters, but carnies instead. Enjoy the madness.

It still frightens him every time he lifts the wand tipped in flame.

He gave up on swallowing swords early on, even though he could execute it without much trouble. He could cover when he sliced something important if he absolutely had to, but the feeling of being cut inside and choking on his own blood was unbearable. He hated the feeling of death too close, too present…

Eating fire is easier. Hurts like hell, but he can deal with being burned. Quick and biting pain over the slow and suffocating feel of bleeding out from the inside.

Sometimes he wonders if he’s remembering something because of that preference for fire over blood…he still knows no more or less than the contents of the box that Seamus gave him when he came through on the grift he’d set up…proven himself to be carny by reading the mark’s thoughts and playing him like he’d been told to do. It was saving Seamus’s wife, though, that had made him more than carny, but family. Peter still hated to think about what could have happened if that car had hit her…

Peter. The name still meant nothing to him, even though the rest of the crew had taken to calling him that instead of ‘Flash,’ the nickname he’d earned with that first bolt of electricity that flew from his fingers. That scared him, too.

Fire and lightning feel the same…like life and death, at his fingertips and in his belly, burning white-hot and powerful. He knows he can handle them both…consuming flame, sending countless sparks flying.

Eating fire still frightens him every time the flames touch his lips because it makes him feel like God. And something about that…something about feeling that powerful and that enormous frightens the hell out of him.

He deals with it by reminding himself that no man can play God…but no matter how often he repeats it, the thought never completely comforts him.

Muse: Peter Petrelli
Fandom: Heroes
Words: 325

Out in the garden where we planted the seeds
There is a tree as old as me
Branches were sewn by the color of green
Ground had arose and passed it’s knees

By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me
I held on as tightly as you held onto me…

( It felt like the final nail in a coffin he`d never built. He`d crossed a line here, a line he couldn`t see or remember...a line that appeared the moment he`d opened the box. )

Muse: Peter Petrelli
Fandom: HEROES
Words: 528

Wake up cold coffee and juice
Remembering you
What happened to you?

They bring him food every day...three square meals, all of them wonderful. He’s really not in any position to enjoy them as much as they probably hope he will, but he does notice them. The hardest meal, though, is breakfast.

They bring him coffee every day....coffee and juice. Every day, just a few hours before he gets his morning meds, they bring his meal...grapefruit and a bagel, his favorite stand-by. They even bring his favorite brand of cream cheese...and, of course, a large cup of coffee with a glass of fresh orange juice.

He can’t help but wonder if it’s intentional...if maybe Lorelai and Rory somehow found him here, since they haven’t yet allowed Peter to contact his family. Maybe Lorelai found out he was here, maybe Rory’s trying to reach him through her. Maybe it’s a message from the outside world saying that he’s still needed...still remembered.

When the bitter, earthy flavor of the coffee touches his tongue, he wonders if she thinks of him as often as he thinks of her. He wonders, with every tart sip of his juice, if she thinks about their morning breakfasts the same way he does...lots of coffee for them both, his bagel and her muffin...and, of course, his orange juice. So, as he loved to tease, when the coffee gave him an ulcer and it finally perforated, at least the blood he puked up would be a nice citrus flavor.

Rory...she’s all he thinks of anymore. It’s her he thinks of when the voice touches his ears through a drainpipe and six to ten inches of solid concrete as he stared at his morning juice and coffee, using words like ‘prisoner’ for the first time.

It’s those breakfasts he remembers as the voice starts talking about escape.

And it’s Rory and those breakfasts he’s remembering when, with a large, scalding swallow of his coffee, he finally agrees to stop taking his medication.

Muse: Peter Petrelli
Fandom: HEROES
Words: 330

All I can say about life is, oh God, enjoy it! - Bob Hope

Something was still wrong...he just couldn’t put his finger on what.

Peter tried to push off the feeling, but it surged to the surface in full force as he took a deep swallow of the beer Caitlin had set in front of him a moment before. The mild, refreshing sting of carbonation washed over his tongue, as did the thick bite of alcohol. He could smell the hops, see the cheerful glitter of the golden liquid in the glass, reflecting the low light of the pub as he set it back down on the bar.

Frowning, Peter lost himself in his own thoughts as he looked up and around the mildly busy pub, wondering where this came from. There were moments, if he tried very hard, where he felt the weight of his own memory loss...the helplessness and loneliness of having nothing to connect to, nothing to define himself but a box of bits and pieces that frightened him with their possibility.

And when he wasn’t trying...these moments snuck up on him. When all at once, the world sprang to life in a way that had nothing to do with these unusual abilities he’d been displaying. He wasn’t hearing something from a mile away when a drinking song in the corner of the room caught his attention and came alive in his ears, jubilant and sweet. He wasn’t smelling anything but Caitlin’s perfume when it filled his lungs and made his gut clench with lust and his heart contract with something other than love...a desire to love. A need to care, to connect...and somewhere in the depths of it all, a strange sort of grief...regret.

The cold beer sliding down his throat was rich with flavors, textures, and smells that called to things he knew he ought to remember. It spoke of warm, lazy summer barbeques, nights of camaraderie and conversation at a bar like this one with friends who had no faces...

Skies were bluer. Each breath was sweeter. He had a place here now...a niche that just might become home in enough time. It was a place to mull over his options, maybe prepare himself for the truth of who and what he really was...

But this felt like a piece of something he shouldn’t have forgotten. Every day he woke up and felt this way...when bits of the world sang out to him and made his soul ache with relief and joy, it felt like something he’d come close to losing.

Every day in the world felt like a victory...and it felt wrong to Peter that he didn’t remember why.

Muse: Peter Petrelli
Fandom: Heroes
Words: 442

( Set during .07% )

Muse: Peter Petrelli
Fandom: HEROES
Words: 485

I guess you could say I’m both...or at least I was. Things are a little different at the moment...but at the same time, not much has changed.

I’m not making sense, I know...maybe it’s the drugs talking. I’m pretty much healed after everything that happened, but they’ve still got me in the hospital to monitor my condition. But back to the subject...Destiny. That’s what I was chasing, even while it was chasing me.

I spent five weeks pursuing the visions, Sylar, Claire, my brother...Claude, Noah Bennet...I spent five weeks chasing all of them, and all I was really doing was looking for my purpose. I knew I had something that I was supposed to do...something big, something *huge*, something that would save the world.

It started with a cheerleader, and it ended with me. More specifically...it ended with my brother.

My problem was trying to stop what happened. That’s where I went wrong. It’s why I could save Claire but not myself from both of our ultimate fates. I didn’t stop what happened to her...I only changed it. A girl still died, but Claire didn’t.

I didn’t stop myself from going nuclear. I couldn’t...but Nathan? He changed it.

I saved the cheerleader so that *we* could save the world. I did my part...and he did his. Just like I knew he would from the beginning.

Hunter, hunted...in the end? It doesn’t really matter. There’s no running from Destiny, and chasing it down? It’s pretty much a catch 22. You chase it, it hunts you...the snake is forever eating its tail.

One way or another...your fate will always find you. How it finds you? *That’s* the choice. That’s what separates the strong from the weak...the heroes from the villains.

Muse: Peter Petrelli
Fandom: HEROES
Words: 302